Wilted

Short Story

Daniel Grant gripped the steering wheel. The leather squeaked against his palm. He let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes to the left.

“Are you fucking serious?” Nadia Perkins asked.

She sat in the passenger seat of the car with a large map of California in her hand. Her thin eyebrows furled close together, and her lips shaped in a snarl. Daniel glanced at her with a slight smirk.

“What?” he scoffed.

“I’m trying to tell you we are going the wrong way, and you roll your eyes at me.”

“I’m not going the wrong way.”

“As I said two miles ago, we needed to make the left onto Meadowview Road.”

“Trust me, this way will be much faster.”

Nadia sighed and folded the map. She opened the glove box and shoved it inside. Her eyes drifted out the window to the rolling hills covered in dead grass. Daniel turned the volume knob of the radio, and the heavy metal song shook the windows of the car. They drove over a hill like any other, but when they reached the peak of this particular hill, Nadia saw her favorite thing. A sunflower patch, only about a fourth of an acre, sat along the right of the road. They rolled down the hill, almost passing the patch when Nadia spoke up.

“Baby, pull over!”

“What? Why!?”

“I want to take some pictures of the sunflowers,” Nadia replied as they passed the patch.

“Well, it looks like we passed it. Might as well keep driving.”

“Damn it, Daniel, stop the fucking car!” Nadia shrieked.

Daniel slammed his foot onto the brake pedal. The pads squealed as the car came to an abrupt stop. He grabbed the gear stick and shifted it into reverse. Nadia stared at Daniel with her arms crossed as the car crawled back toward the sunflower patch.

“There. Are you happy now?” Daniel asked.

“Oh, fuck off.”

The brakes squealed once more, and the car stopped in front of the sunflower patch. Nadia swung her door open and pulled her phone from her left pocket.

“I’m going in there for a moment to get some pictures. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Make sure you hurry before it gets too dark.”

“Yeah, I know.” Nadia scoffed and stepped out of the car with the camera on her phone ready to go.

Daniel watched her slam the door, and walk into the small patch of sunflowers. He reached over and pulled the folded map out of the glove box once she was out of sight. The sunlight beat down on his face. Sweat dripped from his scrunched eyebrows down to his nose and dripped onto the map.

***

Daniel flicked his cigarette butt onto the road. He let out a thick sigh. Smoke crept from his lips and out the cracked driver's side window. The glowing blue numbers on the dashboard read three thirty-six pm. Gone twenty minutes to take some pictures of fucking sunflowers.

He took his phone from the cupholder and slid it into his pocket. Daniel took the keys out of the ignition and the engine silenced. He placed both in his pocket and swung open his door. Heat radiated from the asphalt and into his leather boots. A sharp, metallic clang echoed from the door. Daniel wiped the sweat from his brow and walked around the car. The gravel on the side of the interstate crunched under each step. Each sunflower stood a few feet taller than him. At least three hundred clustered together in a tight group.

“Nadia! Nadia, C’mon, we need to go!” Daniel bellowed.

No reply. Not a single voice. Only his own rattled through his ears.

“Nadia! For fuck's sake! We need to leave if we are going to make it to the party on time!”

Still nothing. Daniel knew what he had to do, and what he wanted to do. He glanced at his car, huffed, and walked into the sunflower patch. Thick stems and wide leaves brushed against him. They were a bright green that looked to glow in the sunlight. Daniel shoved most to the side and squashed some into the ground.

“Nadia!”

Daniel’s throat filled with flames. Nothing but stale air and buzzing flies responded. The burning sense of agitation festered in his mind.

“This isn’t funny Nadia! Where the fuck are you?”

He stopped, looked back, and thought to himself, that awful thought. It stirred in his mind like a tornado, sweeping away all his reasonable decisions. Daniel swallowed hard. The saliva ripped down his throat like razors. He turned around and walked back over the path he made.

“Nadia! I’m going back to the car and leaving! If you decide to stop fucking around, you can join me!”

Sweat dripped down his nose and around the corners of his mouth. The sun sat above him in the sky, watching and laughing at his misfortune. Pain pulsed from one temple to the other. Daniel rubbed his forehead. His black skinny jeans clung to his legs. He wiped off his face with the inside of his t-shirt.

Daniel looked around through the stems, expecting Nadia to pop out, or at least to find the car. Anger bubbled in his chest with ferocity. He pushed some stems away and trampled over more. His rage blinded him from the fact he wasn’t treading old ground any longer. Something rustled in the patch to the right of him. Daniel’s heart thumped against his rib cage as he stopped and snapped toward the sound.

“Nadia! Nadia, stop fucking around. We need to go!”

The patch was silent again.

“What are you doing?”

The stems and leaves behind him rustled. The sound was closer. Daniel’s heart raced faster. He turned around, but nothing was there. Another sound of something walking toward him to the right. He darted his head around, but couldn’t see anyone. Only the green stems of the golden sunflowers surrounded him.

“Nadia?” He asked with his voice lowered.

Something reached out from behind and grabbed Daniel’s right shoulder. His heart slammed against his chest. With his eyebrows scrunched he did another quick one-eighty, almost losing his balance in the process.

“Do you know how fucking long I…”

Daniel’s foul words meant for Nadia clogged in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. His legs locked in place, and he looked up at the thing looming over him. Sunlight gleamed against an amalgamation of thick green stems and leaves. They were interwoven together and slithered like snakes, in the form of a human.

No eyes, ears, nose, or mouth on its head. Instead of a face, there was a large sunflower. The golden petals fluctuated back and forth as if it breathed. Daniel staggered back, but his eyes locked on the creature. It pointed at him and his heartbeat climbed faster. Two more of the creatures slinked through the field. One on each side of Daniel.

Fear washed away Daniel’s anger. His heart sunk deep into his body. A fire scorched his throat as he took short quick breaths. He rushed toward the car without looking back. The sunflowers rustled behind him.

The sound became soft and distant, but it never stopped. Daniel’s heartbeat erupted in his body. The fire in his throat flared throughout his chest. Sweat poured down his face and collected on his t-shirt. The sun sat in the exact spot it was when he entered the sunflower field.

Where the fuck is the car?

Daniel stopped and wiped his face. The rustling of the stems and leaves was faint, but he couldn’t hear them over his hard breaths. He looked around for any sign of his car or the road. There was nothing but sunflower stems. The rustling grew louder.

"Fuck." Daniel wheezed.

His heart slammed against his chest. He tried to run, but an enormous amount of weight sprouted from his right foot. It was too much for him to move. Daniel looked down and pulled on his leg. The weight sprouted from his left foot as well.

He pulled at both legs, but he couldn't move either. Daniel's eyes grew wide. Green stems protruded from his black leather boots. They slithered and slinked over each other, concealing his boots. His heart kicked around in his chest like a raging bull.

Each of the stems continued to slither up his legs, overlapping with each other. The enormous weight followed their crawl. He snapped from his frozen state and grabbed onto them. Daniel grits his teeth and pulled, but they did not budge. A few stems slid onto his hands as the rest continued up his waist.

The weight on his hands left him hunched forward, almost arched. A sharp groan of pain sputtered from Daniel’s lips and his face turned a beat red. The stems slithered up his arms and pulled his hands down closer to the ground. Several pops erupted through his spine. He could no longer move his body.

“Help!”

Daniel screamed, but he wasted his last breath. The stems on his arms reached his shoulders, anchored into his mouth, and shot down his esophagus. The ones at his waist slithered up his torso and dug into his back. A sharp pain ripped through each one of his muscles, and his eyes watered. Fire roared through his head. A stem traveled up his nasal system, cracked through his skull, and linked into his brain.

The stems crawled along the corpse until they covered it. Each is bound and interwoven with one other. They twisted into a spiral, covering Daniel’s face. The humanoid form of stems eased upwards. Wide leaves sprouted across its body from feet to shoulders.

It tilted its head back and faced the sun. A small bud protruded from the middle of the spiral. It grew and formed golden yellow petals that folded in on themselves. One by one, they opened clockwise around the circular center of the sunflower. In unison, the petals fluctuated, like it took its first breath.

***

“Where the hell did he go?” Nadia scoffed.

She looked around the front of the sunflower patch. The car was empty, Daniel was gone. Nadia opened the driver's side door and sat in the seat. She winced and pulled her hand from the leather.

“Fuck!” she growled.

Nadia set her left hand in her lap and looked in the ignition, but the keys weren’t there. Her hand grasped the sun visor and yanked it down. No keys there either. The bottom of the steering wheel section opened with a crisp pop. Nadia grabbed the wires she knew to grab and stroked them together.

They sparked, and the engine murmured, but no catch. Again, she slid the wires together. A sharper spark flashed before her eyes and the engine roared to life. She grabbed the stick, slammed it into drive, and stepped on the gas pedal. The left tires screeched against the interstate road. Gravel kicked up under the right tires. Nadia sped off onto the interstate and never looked back.

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